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It is important to remember when analyzing such things that evolution does not optimize the reproductive fitness of organisms, it optimizes the reproductive fitness of genes. Organisms are a side-effect, a result of the fact that cooperation often provides a competitive advantage [1]. But evolution neither knows nor cares about civilization. It just so happens that, at the moment here on earth, genes that build brains that build civilizations reproduce better than genes that don't. But that has not always been the case, and there is no guarantee that it will continue to be the case. It is entirely possible that this whole civilization thing is just a transient.

IMHO a prerequisite to the survival of civilization is the recognition that the interests of civilizations can be, and often are, at odds with the interests of genes, and so we are necessarily in active conflict with the genes that made us. The best example of this is birth control, which is an obvious existential threat to the reproductive fitness of our genes. So genes that build brains that have an instinctive revulsion to birth control will, all else being equal, reproduce better than genes that build brains that don't have this revulsion. In the absence of active intervention, the result will be overpopulation.

For a civilization to succeed long-term it has to recognize that it is necessarily in conflict with the genes that produced its individual members, because otherwise the genes will win.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_Cooperation

I'm not sure if birth control is the greatest example of our genes being the enemy. Birth control is popular because raising a child is horrifyingly net-negative in the 21st century (unlike most prior centuries, where it made you richer and secured your future), and also because birth is incredibly painful for humans specifically. Both of those are unpleasant facts, and many people would consider our civilization better if they changed.

Birth control is not an example of genes being our enemy, it is an example of us being our genes' enemy.

And "us" is not really the right way to characterize this because our genes are part of "us". It is more like "the part of us that sees value in technological civilization in its own right" vs "the part of us that sees value in being the biological creatures we call humans". The fact that these concepts don't have names is one indication of just how far off the radar this idea is.

Isn't all of modern healthcare an example of civilization being in active conflict with evolution? If "weaker" genes are not eliminated as often, we have effectively ruled out natural selection of survivalist traits.

It's a little more complicated than that. "Strong" and "weak" is not the right way to characterize genes. There is only "better and worse at reproducing in a particular environment." At the moment, our genes are in an environment where health care is available, so there are genes that are able to reproduce in that environment which might not be so good in a different environment.

Also, we are not entirely at odds with our genes. Obviously the relationship is symbiotic to a large extent, because we can't exist without our genes and vice versa. But our brains can want things that are bad for our genes, and vice versa.

I think the assumption by many that we are being visited by aliens was based on the idea that the universe must be just teeming with intelligent life. Over time we are gathering more and more data that shows that may just not be the case. As we've built better and better telescopes we've found no evidence of Type III Civilizations. We've intercepted no interstellar communications or even errant radio waves. As we learn more about other stars we find that many of them probably create hostile environments for life on nearby planets due to solar activity. On top of that a number of studies have come out recently like these two:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-020-00057-8

https://phys.org/news/2018-06-advanced-civilization-universe...

that, through the use of models and simulations, come to the conclusion that we are dang lucky to have evolved on the Earth at all.

While I don't know that I was ever a believer in the Earth being visited by ETs, I always thought that we wound find evidence of intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy any day now. For the reasons above, I'm less and less convinced of that with every passing year.

> even if some other intelligent species would exist, maybe they would not have the same need to communicate, the same need or will to travel, the same need or will to innovate, etc.

I think this is unlikely. It seems to me that some amount of curiosity would be a prerequisite for being able to make discoveries that lead to technological progress. Although I suppose it is possible such progress could be made through some kind of evolutionary mechanism as opposed to individual intellect.

But why would an intelligent species have to make any discoveries, or progress in any way? Maybe they spend all of their intelligence designing birdsongs, until some random natural event drives them extinct. Far from an alien psychology, humanity would be like that if you took away a fraction of the people with the greatest curiosity.

Because discoveries are useful. If the collective reason for your species' existence is writing birdsong, you're going to want agriculture to ensure people can eat, medicine to prevent them from dying, and electricity to make rad synthetic birdsong dubstep remixes. Tech solves problems, and everyone has problems. Doesn't mean you need to leave the solar system though.

How is this hypothetical species going to discover any medicine if they spend all their time writing birdsongs? Any individual with a slightly lower proclivity to write birdsongs will be evicted from the gene pool with great prejudice, so there is no chance that anyone will ever be born with the desire to spend a whole hour thinking about something else. Again, if this seems unrealistic, just imagine humanity with the mean "art vs. programming" balance of desires shifted a little bit towards art. There are many people who do not care at all about doing the kinds of things that lead to solving problems, and it is easy to imagine a species that is just them.

Because at some point you run out of food, and if you write birdsong in spite of that you just die out. It may be possible but its not much an effective long term strategy. Too stupid to survive doesn't earn a lot of marks towards being an intelligent species.

Individuals with a desire to improve their survivability being evicted from the gene pool is the opposite of how natural selection works. Humans would still invent things even if painting gave everyone erotic pleasure.

I am suggesting that intelligent populations may often die out. Evolution doesn't look ahead to avoid dead ends.

An I'm suggesting that a population that dies out before accomplishing any intellectual achievements wasn't all that intelligent or make sense as a species. How a species would appear that decides to forego its basic needs in favor of making art is beyond me.

A species that spends its time making birdsongs is effectively just a dumber version of birds.

> Evolution doesn't look ahead to avoid dead ends.

It does though, by many metrics. Many steps of evolution are not just the outright outcomes, but traits that make it easier for competitive adaptations to develop later on. That is, natural selection works on multiple levels of derivatives of fitness scores. Humanity's intelligence is built on top of everything else, and is often overruled, by base survival instincts.

The way I see it, our curiosity and desire to explore is a reflection through our instincts of basic biological imperatives. Even bacteria "want" to explore, find new territories where there might be undiscovered resources, etc. Exploration is what helps a species survive long-term. We're smart, but the things we instinctively want are still a reflection of the basic things that any life form wants and needs.

I don't think you could have a super-advanced species that didn't want to explore, reproduce, wasn't curious. You couldn't have an advanced species that just went about doing the same thing forever. They wouldn't be an advanced species. They'd be some dead branch of the evolutionary tree that got pruned long ago, in all likelihood. Intelligence is fundamentally curious, just like lifeforms, even bacteria, if you squint hard enough, are "curious".

Bacteria don't want to explore, they float around, and occasionally do gradient climbing to navigate to good chemicals. That's an example of a pro-survival technique that works very well, but is not going to lead to anything better. Every living thing on Earth except for people is an example of a living thing with some degree of intelligence, or at least beneficial control, but that does not have scientific progress.

Amoebas can propel themselves, and if you drop them in one corner of a lake, I can guarantee you that they will explore it to find food and reproduce.

Bacteria don't have scientific progress, but because they reproduce rapidly, they also evolve very fast compared to us. Some of them can even exchange genetic material with each other (!). This is a way for them to exchange "knowledge" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilus).

I can guarantee you that if you observed amoebas under a microscope for a while, you would realize that these are more sophisticated little machines than you think.

> "largest genomes belongs to a very small creature, Amoeba dubia. This protozoan genome has 670 billion units of DNA, or base pairs. The genome of a cousin, Amoeba proteus, has a mere 290 billion base pairs, making it 100 times larger than the human genome."

> But why would an intelligent species have to make any discoveries

Intelligence seems to be rather expensive thing to evolve and maintain. In biology, something that’s expensive has to translate to fitness advantage. Human mind gave humans an ultimate advantage when it comes to survival. All doom and gloom aside, we’re the only species that could potentially survive total annihilation of the planet. It’s not inconceivable that people could design the technology to sustain a civilization in space.

That’s why I think any intelligent species use their mind to build things and expand their knowledge about the universe. That’s the “purpose” of having intelligence.

> even if some other intelligent species would exist, maybe they would not have the same need to communicate, the same need or will to travel, the same need or will to innovate, etc.

This is true. But even if just a small fraction of civilizations engaged in interstellar expansion, they'd quickly subsume the galaxy on geological timescales. Darwin applies just as much across the stars as it does in a tide pool. As long as there's even a small amount of competition, it will push every player to aggressively expand.

The only way out is either 1) technological civilization almost never evolve anywhere. 2) Virtually every technological civilization winds up eschewing interstellar expansion. Or 3) a single player previously won the game, and used its dominant position to benevolently stop the game.

> and used its dominant position to benevolently stop the game.

Why benevolently? Why not maliciously?

> human beings may be individually smart (compared to some other species) yet the collective intelligence of humanity is rather poor (which translates to the unability to solve collective problems such as sustainable management of our finite natural resources (e.g. oil) or of the consequences of our activity (e.g. biodiversity fall and climate change)).

This makes a big assumption: that our inability to solve these problems is rooted in a lack of intelligence (collectively or individually). I don't think that's the case at all. Solutions to these problems are widely known, and most educated people support them, at least in theory.

The problem isn't with our intelligence, it's with our incentives. Climate change is a tragedy of the commons (as are other environmental degradation issues, such as loss of biodiversity). Each of us would benefit if everyone cooperated (a nice environment for each of us), but each of us also benefits when we individually defect (cheaper energy for our various needs). As a result, we predictably end up with the suboptimal outcome of (almost-)everybody-defects.

What's the way out of the dilemma? It's clearly not a matter of getting smarter. I don't think it's an issue we can solve with moral pleading either: we've been trying that for decades. But what if we could change the game and remove the incentives to defect? * We could implement a carbon tax, incentivizing firms and consumers to use carbon-neural energy sources. * We could subsidize clean energy, incentivizing the same. * We could invest as much money as possible in reducing the cost of clean energy sources, eventually removing the need for ongoing tax/subsidy policies.

If non-polluting energy sources are cheaper, more widely available, and easier to use than polluting sources, no one would ever choose the latter. No heightened intelligence required.

AGI seems like a likely option and under discussed for what could be met first.

It’d be easier for it to travel great distances than organic life, it’d be possible for a variety of organic life to arrive at creating it, it may be hard for organic life to solve the control problem to limit it, etc.

>maybe the laws of physics together with the nature/amount of natural resources on a typical planet do not enable such intergalactic space travels

This is already known not to be the case, the Breakthrough Starshot project is expensive, but merely expensive.